Listen I know.  If there’s anything more annoying than the holiday’s themselves, it’s the inevitable deluge of “why the holiday’s are annoying in this way and that” pieces that pervade every newspaper, radio segment and blog that pass through our liberal-minded orbits.  Of course it’s always irritating to feel like your emotional state is pre-decided by cultural mandate.  And there are, undeniably, just too gosh darn many things to do.  But isn’t there a way to enjoy all the good parts of the holidays – the peoples, the celebrations and the pervasive scent of nutmeg without getting oppressed by the stressing, spending and massive over-eating that tags along like the extra gregarious friend of a friend whose charm wears off faster than you can say “aquavit?”
I couldn’t tell you, I’m already a little stressed out.  Guess what are annoying?  The holidays!  My day job is all, “it’s the end of the year and we need you to actually work” My graduate school applications are all, “due.”  I’ve got a performance I’m not prepared for that’s like, “in three weeks” and parents who want me sedated on the couch in New Jersey by “Monday evening”.
All in all, I think it’s a good time to talk about the 5 hindrances, HC Dharma’s topic de semaine from our special Friday, Novemeber 14th class.  A Theravaden teaching, the hindrances (or 5 nivarana) are basically the schmutzy stuff that gets in the way of our practice.  The Theravaden’s specifically talk about the hindrances in terms of how it affects our sitting meditation practice, but as we are, in a way, practicing all the time, they’re equally applicable in our waking lives.
The Five Hindrances are:
1. Sensual Desire
2. Aversion
3. Sloth or Torpor
4. Restlessness
5. Doubt.
Okay.  So in this burgeoning period of holiday stresses, when obligations and responsibilities seem to merge into a blinding silver river threatening to woosh one straight from Thanksgiving through January I’ve learned that there are three activities that will save me:  1.  Meditation. 2. Exercise and 3.  Finishing things.  In essence, the first two are only support systems for the last, most important, most crucially time-saving, health-saving, sanity rectifying activity: staying with a task with single pointed focus until it is finished.  Now when I’m all calm and loose and have a few things on my plate rather than a thousand I find this to be no problem.  But when I’ve got work stuff and creative stuff and social stuff and family stuff all at the same time this gets harder.  Email starts getting checked when it shouldn’t be.  Text messages get sent in the middle of conversations.  While working on my play I’ll succumb to urges to watch Beyonce’s “Single Girls (Put A Ring on It)” on youtube.  (Sorry – that dancing is good.  And ridiculous.  And good).
That’s why in times of over activity, thinking about the five hindrances can be so helpful.  Yesterday I had to tailor my personal statements for each individual graduate school I’m applying to.  I hate this task.  I love writing plays and prose but a statement about “who I am and what are my goals as a writer” – well don’t they know I’m a Buddhist and have no solid sense of self?  Can’t they just read my play?  Why do I have to talk about myself in that kind of serious, bullshit kind of way?  Should I go cutesy and risk not seeming serious?  Should I go serious and risk sounding florid?  Whatever I just need to get it done.  Right, Jules?  In the words of she-who-shall-not-be-named, let’s just, ahem, gedderdone.
So I sit down to write.  I’ve meditated.  I’m caffeinated.  I will not stand up from this chair until I finish this f&*#er.  I got MS Word open.  My fingers are caressing the keys, they’re fingering the ridges, they’re running over their edges in a kind of sensitive, exploratory anticipation and  …shit.  I’m thinking about sex.  Okay no problem, just sensual desire.  Notice, let it go.  Okay, get some sentences in and it’s a little boring and you know now that I think about it why the hell do I always have to call her?  You think she could call me once in a while?  And like, asked me some questions every once in a – okay – A little aversion there, Jules. Notice.  Release.  Notice.  Little distraction – just let it go.  Back to the thing- typety- type-type-type and goodness this is so not at all good!  Why would I even think that anyone will ever pay me to string words together when I can’t even (DOUBT) you know forget it I just have to check my email (RESTLESS) and actually I am so ….(SLOTH) tired.  So very very tired.
I did end up staying with and finishing the statement.  And while those 5 Nivarana kept nuzzling up to me like underfed reindeer, naming them seriously undercut their power.  In a way, it’s like by naming them you do that thing that Jennifer Connelly does to David Bowie at the end of Labyrinth that causes his MC Escher castle to dissolve and Toby to plop back into her arms.
Hindrances: You have no power over me.